


Beautiful Trauma

by PaperThinRevolutionary (SingFortissimo)



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, described to me as "unhealthy kismesis" if that means anything to y'all, mild vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 01:16:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14801583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingFortissimo/pseuds/PaperThinRevolutionary
Summary: After their idea of love died out, the ecstasy of the night always felt like it was just a hazed memory, just something new to throw on the kindling for their eventual burnout.





	Beautiful Trauma

Nothing about this felt healthy to either of them, but something about it just kept bringing them back again and again. The sex was good, that was always a plus, but sometimes that just _wasn’t enough_. The outbursts were too much for good sex to win out. There was something that just kept drawing the two of them together though, night after night, week after week, drawing into months and now _years_. 

Five, to be exact. 

Five years of this relationship that should have ended about four years and fifty one weeks ago. Nothing about this was good for either of them, but it had become like an addiction, each time they got together it was like finally scratching the itch that bubbled under their skin until their next meeting. 

It always started the same way—a back slammed against the wall, teeth and tongues, scrapes and bites between deep and hungry kisses. Clothing left in a trail on the way to the bedroom from the front door all the way to the foot of the bed. Very few words were exchanged beyond utterances of names, curses, and some fucked up semblance of prayer through breathy laughs and hickeys blooming over pale or freckled skin. 

Occasionally, things would get even heavier, and after one such night, freckled skin and hickeys were joined by the delicate red blossom and bruising of bamboo rope burn biting at wrists and ankles. 

In the five years they’d been seeing each other, no romantics were exchanged. There was never an utterance of “I love you” or anything even remotely along the lines of genuine affection, but in somehow both of the men knew that they loved the other in some fucked up way. After all, some sort of love was needed, they thought, to be able to lay in one another’s arms for hours after everything was over, just breathing one another in without saying a word yet never feeling uncomfortable or unwanted. It was more than a mutual agreement, but to say that it was any sort of traditional love would be an absolute disgrace to people who, well... People who felt it. 

People who could function without that violent bite. People who would call someone for more than sex, more than pain, more than quenching the addiction that they seemed to have when they hurt one another. 

It seemed as if they took turns reaching out to one another. Every other night, really, to the point that they may as well have just moved in with one another by then. 

_Any functioning couple would have._

That thought was shaken away as tanned fingers tapped out a message to the only one who could fix the loud humming in his mind, the burn under his skin, the self deprecating thoughts and self mutilating intentions that should have hinted for the man to go to a psychiatrist, not to call for a hookup at some god awful hour of the night. 

_‘I need you here’  
‘Quick.’_

**‘Getting desperate?’  
‘You know, it doesn’t look good on you.’ **

_‘I didn’t ask if it did.’  
‘Just come over.’   
‘I need you’  
‘The door is unlocked for you’  
‘Please, Charles.’ _

The messages made his fingers itch as he tapped them out, the tormenting tease of Charles’ responses got under his skin just as easily as the burn that lingered whenever he was gone. He knew that the night in those passionate throes would shut up the screaming in his mind. 

There was no difference to him anymore between his old addictions and his new. Charles was his drug, the one that he needed to get by, a fix that he had to chase down for the next hit. To him, the only saving grace that thought held was the fact that Charles needed him in the exact same way. 

As unhealthy as this path was, it definitely went two ways. 

~~

The night was long, but by the end of it, John could feel his mind and his body becoming one again, the burning ache in his skin only focusing on where Charles’ hands touched his skin. Blood pulsed hot under the scrape of dull nails, which seemed as if they traced the sporadic smatterings of freckles all over John’s body, painting pictures that only Charles could see. 

Their breathing was slowing in tandem, enough so that they could speak to one another again if they so desired. The thumping of Charles’ heart was enough noise for John, and Charles would say the same of the slightly less labored puffs of air from John’s lips. As they returned back to a more relaxed state, it was no surprise that the soft touches that the two shared would inevitably fall into kisses yet again, getting heavy until they were at it again. 

It always went this way, together until one of them had to get to work, go finish chores, whatever happened to be in the way of this fantasy today. Something about the separation would always turn into an argument, bickering about why they never spent more time together or some other trivial bullshit that neither of them would ever act upon outside of that fight. 

They knew they wouldn’t make a move beyond their nights together, but it was too much to pass up. One argument was worth everything else, wasn’t it? 

Well… Wasn’t it? 

~~

After their idea of love died out, the ecstasy of the night always felt like it was just a hazed memory, just something new to throw on the kindling for their eventual burnout. 

John felt this beginning to weigh him down, all the nights spent together that could have turned into something so much more, and all the nights that tip-toed the lines of becoming something _so much worse_.

Nights when Charles couldn’t come around, John’s best friend became the stocked cabinet beside his refrigerator. When his moods hit, there were two things to soothe him, liquor or Charles. 

Who was he to deny that his best friend sat in the bottom of a bottle more often than not? Besides, it wasn’t like anyone would ask him anyway.

In the five years, one thing did become increasingly apparent to him. Charles didn’t give a single _fuck_ about him outside of their arrangement, but could John really say that he cared, either? Questions like that drove him deeper into the bottle of Woodford Reserve (one particular summer night, it had been a bottle of Jack Daniels’ Sinatra Select, what John would refer to as his most expensive breakdown to date). 

The answers never came. Not from the whiskey, not from the breakdowns, and certainly not from the hours he would spend on his knees in the bathroom, facedown with his forehead pressed to cold porcelain while he heaved up every bit of liquid in his body and he could only think to pray for death over _this_. 

Okay, maybe he was being a little dramatic. Maybe death was a little much, but what else did he have? There were two options for him, his $30 a bottle best friend, or whatever the hell he would consider Charles. 

Part of him longed to say “boyfriend”, prayed that he could call it _more_ , but every part of him burned at the thought. He could never tell if it was a good burn or a bad burn, but it was there, dulling every other sense he possessed as his mind focused in on dark brown eyes, wavy black hair, that stupid fucking crooked smile and that bitter laugh that seemed to resonate in John’s chest whenever he even heard it. 

It felt like he was walking blind when he got like this, but he knew that he was addicted. To Woodford, to this pain, to _Charles, god **fucking damnit** , he was addicted to Charles_. 

Charles was a jagged pill that John kept swallowing, the contents of the little yellow bottle he would pull from the cabinet with shaking hands every morning. He would take more than he needed, more than he should, just to fight that ache and get his fix. Charles was his rock bottom, his beautiful trauma that he never wanted to undo. 

Two parts of John’s mind seemed to take the most control in these situations; Idealization and reality. His idealized thoughts would tell him that Charles was fine, that Charles loved John just as much as John loved him. Idealization also convinced him that they were healthy, that they were in a relationship that could last, and that the funeral pyre of this infatuation wasn’t waiting off in the wings for one last snap to set it ablaze. 

Idealization told him that they loved one another, that this would make him happy, and that Charles was the best that he could do. 

Reality knew that this was a waking nightmare, that every time they would get handsy with one another outside of the bedroom it would become more violent. The bruises weren’t all their semblances of romantic anymore, the hole in the hallway wall wasn’t just some avant garde decoration that John considered framing to make it look intentional. John was lucky he wasn’t in the way when Charles lost control. 

If this was ever going to work, something would have to change, but neither of them showed any intention of bettering themselves. 

Reality knew that. Idealization wouldn’t take that for an answer.

**Author's Note:**

> hi im back with a bachelors degree y'all 
> 
> sorry for the somewhat heavy fic and rarepair combination but this is sort of a mild vent of some bottled up feels and the product of me having P!nk's new album on loop since i saw her a couple weeks ago. 
> 
> this is the first thing i've written in a while that wasn't for school in any way, so it might be a bit rough, but i'm really happy with where it ended up
> 
> i might continue this if anyone wants it to be continued (peace sign) 
> 
> a million thanks and more to Georgia for reading over this while i wrote it and saying sweet things so i wouldn't chicken out and stop <3 
> 
> until next time, dear friends   
> -krys


End file.
